TENNIS / U.S. OPEN : Capriati Starts Slowly, Then Stands Back

NEW YORK — What do you do when you are playing your first-round match at the U.S. Open and you are behind, 5-1, almost before the cream sauce hits the first $17 pasta at the concession stands?

If you are Jennifer Capriati, you handle it this way:

“Well, I just get more intense and just try to focus a little better and you know, concentrate more.”

It worked Tuesday. Capriati, the 16-year-old from Florida, came from behind for a 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 victory over Nicole Muns-Jagerman, who had too much trouble keeping the ball on the court.

Capriati, who had seven double-faults, eventually discovered that the most prudent manner to play Muns-Jagerman was to get out of the way. That worked, too--Muns-Jagerman had 44 unforced errors.

So after a 58-minute first set, Capriati finished off the match 30 minutes later and then addressed the possibility of actually getting her first Grand Slam tournament victory at the Open.

“Well, I don’t always go in there believing that I can win a Grand Slam or any tournament, but this year, I expect more from myself,” she said.

At 16, Capriati could replace Tracy Austin as the youngest U.S. Open champion.

“Well, when people ask me--when people say that to me, you know, I kind of just think about it, wow, but I really don’t think about it.”

That explains it, all right. Fourth-seeded Gabriela Sabatini had all the answers in her first-round match against Linda Harvey-Wild and won, 6-1, 6-2, despite being slightly distracted when a strong gust of wind knocked over a courtside umbrella in the middle of a point.

Martina Navratilova had more than a little difficulty advancing, losing the first set and blowing a 5-2 lead in the third set before putting away Shaun Stafford, 4-6, 6-1, 7-5.

There were three upsets. Ann Grossman ousted No. 8-seeded Conchita Martinez, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4; Rosalyn Fairbank-Nideffer defeated No. 10 Jana Novotna, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), and Sabine Appelmans beat No. 11 Anke Huber, 6-3, 6-4.

Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, seeded fifth, dropped the first set to Larisa Savchenko-Neiland, but came back to win, 5-7, 6-2, 6-2.

Afterward, Sanchez Vicario gave her view of what happened: “It is good that I come back, but I start very slow in the beginning.”